Early to Bed, Early to Rise

I spent my early years in East Cambridge (Our Fair City). I was thequiet little brother, and for as long as I can remember Tom was 12years older than me. In fact, he still is. Tom and our sister, Lucille,to this day say they didn't notice me until I was about five years old.Mom claimed one morning Tom came into the kitchen and said, "Hey, who'sthis little kid who's always following me around?"

I can't say that I remember much from my early childhood, except it was wonderful. I had everything a kid could want: two square meals a day and a basket to sleep in and an imaginary dog. I do remember one thing, however. Mom always had us in bed at 7:00. If I were any kind of a person today, I'dbe working this out in therapy. I never got to watch TV or do any ofthose fun things the other kids did. I'd lie in bed, and waftingthrough the window I would hear the sounds of my playmates outside.Talk about breaking a kid's heart. I was all tucked in with my blankieon a warm summer night, and they were frolicking in the streets. Ithink Tommy had to do the same thing too; I'm not sure. As a result ofthis, Tommy and I refuse to go to bed. When it's time to go to bed, youwon't find us anywhere near a bed or under the covers. Sofas, chairs,kitchen table, you name it-anywhere but under the covers.

Grandma Pockets the Dough

I got my start in show business when I was four or five. My grandmother(Mom's mom) lived with us, and Grandma's job was the shopping. Every day she and I would make the rounds to the bakery, the butcher shop, thegrocery store, etc., and at each stop it was up to me, little Raymie, to getout there and sing and dance for all the other grandmothers-all inItalian. Yep, I'd sing these songs from the Old Country, and all theold ladies would go nuts. They would throw all this money at me. Ofcourse, my grandmother would pretend that I was getting it all. Thenwhen everyone left, she'd pocket most of it. She would keep 90 percent andgive me 10 percent. She didn't understand the agent-talent relationship. Allthat change probably paid for that Lincoln Continental she bought.

I was a chunky little tyke. Mom says that Dad always wanted to call meChunky, but there was already a candy bar with that name so they settledon Chucky, which is what I've been called, it seems, forever. I have cousinswho to this day don't know my real name. No kidding.

Taking Things Apart

For as long as I can remember, I've loved to take things apart to seehow they work, and as a kid I'd take things apart and put them backtogether again over and over. That was my hobby. Take it apart; put itback together again. We were lucky the Museum of Science was right downthe street from where we used to live, and Dad and I would go therealmost every weekend. I got interested in becoming a scientist.Overall, I was pretty quiet as a kid, and my childhood consisted ofstanding around and watching Tommy take his car apart and then watchinghim desperately trying to put it back together again. Tommy owned anumber of cars while we were growing up, all of which, as you might suspect, were complete junkboxes, veritable heaps of automotive refuse. Some things never change.

Hide and Seek on the Mean Streets

When I wasn't hanging out with Tommy, I was playing all the regularschool-kid games. We didn't have a park or playground to play in, andwe certainly didn't have any grass. Our park was the street. We playedhide-and-seek and tag and stickball and, later on, spin the bottle.That was my favorite. Well, actually, playing doctor was my realfavorite.

But our neighborhood was great because we had a million kids. I couldliterally walk out the door and there would be kids everywhere to playwith. It was great. The city was a lot of fun. You had the nice kids,the jerks, the weirdos, the tough kids-and I really got a lesson on howto deal with all kinds of kids. This may be the single most importantthing that kids don't get if they grow up in the suburbs, where everyone ispretty much the same.

In the city you have to deal with everyone. There were some mean kids,and there were some really nice ones too. One of the first kids I metwas from Italy. This occurred during one of my many years inkindergarten. This young fellow didn't speak any English, and he worethese funny clothes and little sandals-a lot like Tommy dresses today,come to think of it. I spoke a little Italian from all those songs Ihad to learn to buy Grandma that Lincoln. So we became fast friendsuntil I moved away from Cambridge in fifth grade. One day, 20 yearslater, he came into the garage to fix his car, and, of course, Irecognized him immediately. He was still wearing those stupid littlesandals. It was nice to get reacquainted. We're now best of friendsagain, and of course his English is much better.

Heartbreak: A Different Alice Hughes

I went to the Gannett School for seven years. It was right around thecorner from our house. It was a four-room schoolhouse, kindergartenthrough third grade. You do the math-one teacher for each grade. Bythe way, my siblings and our mother went to the same school, and I thinkwe all had the same teachers. Anyway, my favorite teacher of all timewas Alice Hughes. I had her for second grade and again for third grade,or maybe I was in second grade twice; I don't remember. Anyway, manyyears later at the garage, a customer named Mark Hughes came in andsaid, "My mother would like to bring her car in." So I say, "Sure, what'sher name?" He says, "Alice. She's a retired schoolteacher. She used toteach right here in Cambridge a long time ago." And I thought, This mustbe the Alice Hughes that I loved. So one day this little old lady comesinto the garage, and I introduce myself. "Mrs. Hughes? Hi, I'm RayMagliozzi. I think I had you as a teacher." She took one look at meand said, "No, I don't think so, sonny." Ah, it was a different AliceHughes. I was positively heartbroken. I had been all prepared to cryin her arms and tell her about my pathetic little life. What a bummer.

The Third Brother: My Sister

My sister Lucille was a complete blank as far as I was concerned. Ibarely remember her. She was never home. I do recall very vividly, however, that she and Mom used to fight all the time. You see, Sis was aslob. And I remember many times when my mother would open up Lucille'sbedroom window and throw all of her stuff onto the street. Her room wasa mess, though, and I honestly can't say that she didn't deserve it.Remember those pictures of the houses in Florida that got hit byHurricane Andrew? That's what Lucille's room used to look like all thetime - stuff all over the place. Every once in a while, Mom would getsick of it and toss everything out onto the street. Lucille would comehome and see all her clothes and books and stuff strewn about theneighborhood, and then it was her turn to rant and rave. What a circus.

When I wasn't being amused by this, I would spend my time with Tommy,and even though I was just the little kid brother, he used to take meeverywhere. He didn't always bring me back; he just took me places.He'd leave me there and I'd have to find my way home. By the time Iwas seven, I had learned all the bus and subway routes in the entirecity.

Now, I know this is my bio, but I'm going to include somethingthat should have been in Tommy's bio which I'm sure he forgot toinclude. When my brother graduated from college, he joined the army forsix months. I think they call it the reserves. Then for the next sevenyears he was supposed to go to summer camp. Well, one year he reportedto Camp Drum in New York, and they didn't have his papers. They didn'tknow who he was or where he was supposed to be. So he got in his carand he came home. They never called him back. Now that this tidbit ofmilitary intelligence is out, the Department of Defense is certainlygoing to come looking for him. "Magliozzi, you owe us seven years ofsummer camp." I can't wait.

Anyway, because my brother went to MIT, I guess it was predeterminedthat I would go there too. I had no choice. And while I was there Istudied everything and really learned nothing, and I eventuallygraduated from MIT in 1972. I ended up with a degree in humanities andscience. MIT is known for its humanities program. After all, with aname like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, you know they must havea splendid humanities department.

Sophomore Year "Abroad"

I took a year off in the middle of my MIT education and joined VISTA,the Volunteers in Service to America program. It was my sophomore yearabroad, except I didn't go abroad; I went to Texas. And we did thingslike organize high school equivalency programs for adults, and some community organizing. It was pretty enlightening, all in all-basically we were radicals causing trouble.

Most importantly, it was where I met my future wife, Monique. Actually,we met in Norman, Oklahoma. We were doing all these little VISTA training games together. We met rappelling off a mountainside. I kid you not. I (cleverly) asked her to marry me while I was holding her safety line. She accepted, of course. We came back to Cambridge and got married, and Monique worked my way through a couple of senior years at MIT.

A Magliozzi in the North Woods

After college, I decided I wanted to try teaching. Why? Well, I knew Icould do a better job than most of my teachers had done. So I got a jobteaching science to unsuspecting kids in Bennington, Vermont.

We froze our butts off. We couldn't wait to get out of there. Betweenthe snow, the mud season, and the black flies, it was too much for us tohandle. I will admit that I really did enjoy the fall. Fall in Vermontis awesome, all two weeks of it. But, man, winter sure comes on quicklyand with a fury, and it stays a long time. My Mediterranean heritagejust wouldn't allow it. What made matters worse was that Vermontersreally weren't very friendly. I think you have to have a fewgenerations buried there before they'll really accept you. It'sprobably different now, but we were definitely considered to beinterlopers back then. Not only did we come from "someplace else," butwe had funny-sounding last names and I had this Cuban-looking darkskin. They probably thought I was smuggling cigars from Havana. Sothey didn't like me.

How I Saved Thomas from a Life of Indolence and Vagrancy

So there we were, Monique and I, in Bennington, Vermont, freezing all ofour appendages off. At about the same time, Tom became self-unemployed. He was basically a bum, and he spent his days hanging out in Harvard Square drinking coffee. I knew the best way to keep himout of trouble was to get him working, and Mom called me every day,begging me to rescue him. We decided to open Hacker's Haven to saveTommy from a life of vagrancy. This was the time when everyone wasworking on his own car, so we thought, and our idea was to open a garagewhere people could do their own work and we'd rent space and tools tothem.

We knew our idea was brilliant and thought we'd have wheelbarrows full of money to show for it. Of course, the do-it-yourselfers who came in were such klutzes that we felt sorry for them, and we'd end up working ontheir cars for $2.50 an hour, which is what they were paying tosupposedly do their own work. So we ended up fixing all the cars thatcame in. I mean, if some poor chump is spending all day trying tochange his spark plugs, you can't help but give him a hand.Consequently, we ended up helping everyone all the time, and we made nomoney at all. We started hiring people to help out, and eventually theplace just sort of evolved into what is now Ray's Garage. Itwas fun, though. We had some incredible laughs and we met some greatpeople. We also met some weirdos, dingbats and screwballs. We somehowmanaged to attract the most incredible mix of characters to Hacker's Haven. This was Cambridge in the early '70s, and there were some real wacked-out people around then (still are, for that matter).

I'll never forget this one guy, Joe Schram. We had this huge coffeepot that held 75 cups, and I swear he must have had 40 cups of coffee from that thing each time he was there. As you might imagine, by the end of the day he was flying. I mean really flying. The longer he stayed, the faster he worked. Then one day Joe told us that he had to finish his car that day because he had to leave the state. Why? Well, he was being pursued by space aliens. Sureenough, he worked on that car all day, drinking coffee with one hand,turning the wrenches with the other. Amazingly, the thing started up.We watched as he drove his car out the door, stepped on the brake pedal,and crashed that wreck into the building across the street. I'm surethose aliens caught up with him, because we never saw him again.

Monique, Andrew, Louie, Philly and a Cat Named Doug.

Monique and I have two kids: Andrew's 23 and Louie's 32. Lou is married with two young boys of his own -- Lucas and, yes, another Raymond. He is also the proud owner of a health food store not far from Our Fair City. Drew is still a bachelor (we are getting the pork chop ready!) but has demonstrated some un-Magliozzi-like competence by starting his own Boston-based tutoring company.

Our most successful offspring is Scout, our border collie. Under Monique's diligent coaching, Scout has been making a name for herself among the elite of the doggy-agility world. Sadly, our other pet, Dougie the cat, named by Drew after our esteemed Producer, recently went to the litter box in the sky.

These days I pretty much run the garage and work on Car Talk. The garageis still very much a full-time job. I get there at 8:00 in the morningor so and don't leave until, oh, maybe 9:00 in the morning. (Justkidding. I'm there all day). I have four guys working at the garage,if you count both humans and subhumans. I'm still very much involved,and I still enjoy taking things apart and putting them back togetheragain. Except now I can do it and actually charge for it. And I'vegotten better at it over the years. Every time I do a job I have fewerand fewer parts left over. What a great feeling! And, of course,there's Car Talk too. That consists of doing the show, driving all thenew cars that come out, and trying frantically to come up with a mediocrenew Puzzler each week. I spend most of my time avoiding memos from Dougie. He's always trying to professionalizeus. If you've heard the show recently, you know he hasn't had a wholelot of luck, and I'm doing my best at avoiding his advice.

Ray Magliozzi